My calendar is chock-full from now through New Years, with tons of holiday parties to attend and I wouldn’t dream of showing up to any of these events empty handed. I’m actually a pretty good cook and while I enjoy trying new things, I have a few stand-by recipes that I use for party offerings. I make a mean artichoke dip but my most recent mastered appetizer actually involves chicken wings.

I enjoy cooking with beer whenever possible, so when I came across a recipe for Spicy Brown Ale Brined Wings on BeerCook.com, I was intrigued.

The recipe calls for:

½ cup brown sugar
½ cup kosher salt
24 oz brown ale
5 pounds chicken wings, cut into three sections, small tips removed
1 cup butter
2 tbsp minced garlic
¼ cup minced fresh jalapeños (or a mix of habaneros and jalapeños)
½ cup (or more) hot pepper sauce
½ cup Sriracha or Asian sweet-hot chile sauce
Pinch ground cinnamon
1 tsp finely ground black pepper
24 skewers at least 10 inches long
2 tbsp black or toasted sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

I’d just heard friends raving about Sriacha sauce (which I hadn’t yet tried) and I already had a huge jar of sesame seeds that I wanted to use.

I decided to try my hand at these interesting wings and I must say, I’m glad that I did. Buffalo wings tend to reign supreme around here and as delicious as they are, I think we tend to forget that there are other types of sauces out there.

The sweet, tangy, garlic, spice flavor was really delicious. I used Dogfish Head Brown Ale and I was surprised how much the flavor of the beer really came through. I plan on making another batch for my book club next week and I might have to try Newcastle and see how it differs. The recipe says to make these on the grill and although they did fine in the oven, I can’t help but imagine they’d be even better if I did grill them. Damn the freezing temperatures and pesky snow.

Regardless, if you’re looking for an easy and unique dish that’s sure to impress your friends, I highly suggest trying it out for yourself. The best part is, you end up with a bottle of Sriracha Sauce – which is seriously incredible on just about anything. If you’re a Red Hot junkie like myself, you’ve gotta try it – even if you don’t make the wings. Maybe I can convince our purchasing guys that we should sell it on the site…

TAGS [ BEER CHICKEN WINGS | BROWN ALE WINGS | BEER WINGS RECIPE | COOKING WITH BEER ]